One thing I can never have too many of in my closet are shoes. I love vintage looks, especially the more folksy styles of the seventies. My favorite seventies trend in shoes are wooden heels.

Wood heels can be painted and carved in elegant and imaginative ways.

Wood heels were seen on every style of shoes in the seventies, from boots to sandals to pumps. They could be dressed up or down, worn to work, parties, or the beach.

Boots, my favorite way to rock the wood heel!

The thing I like best about wood heels, and all vintage clothes, is that they’re not only on trend, they’re environmentally responsible, and easy on the wallet too! Buying vintage clothes means buying something that isn’t using up valuable natural resources to produce. It’s also a means to put sweat shops out of business all over the world.

Classy wood heels, perfect for date night!

When you buy inexpensive clothes from the big box stores, it creates a demand for more inexpensive clothes. Companies work harder to cut costs to meet that demand, taking their factories overseas, paying their workers less and less, and building unsafe factories.

Menswear inspired wood heels are perfect for the office, but also go great with skinny jeans and a cute t shirt.

Buying vintage clothes keeps your cost down, without cutting down more trees, without putting more money in corporate pockets. Most vintage clothing sellers are small independent businesses, or non profits such as the Salvation Army and Goodwill.

So, not only are vintage wood heels stylish, they’re good for your peace of mind!

Interested in any of the shoes featured in this article? You can find them here on Etsy:

It’s midsummer, and yard/rummage/estate sale season is in full swing here in New England. One of my favorite annual sales is at the St. Mary’s School in Baltic, CT. A four day event, it’s always packed with amazing goodies, and this year was no different.

Outside the church there are oodles of furniture and outdoor goods. In the gym, there are tables piled high with clothes, jewelry, and miscellaneous items. There are classrooms full of toys, housewares, and craft supplies. The stage is covered in books. A vintage lovers dream.

Pretty pretty!

I went into the housewares room first, where all the vintage dishes, glasses, and kitchen goods can be found. I found a great ivy teapot, Anchor Hocking Lido glasses for my mother, a set of Harker Pottery snack plates and cups, and some coffee cups for my sister, who just moved into an old farmhouse. I paid for them and they were wrapped up and put in an old Staples copier box for me, complete with lid. I then left them behind the main table in the gym to pick up later. They wrote my name on the side of the box and promised they’d take good care of it.

She even has eyelashes! So cute!

I wandered around the rest of the sale, picking up a fantastic knit turtle in the toy room, and then headed back to get my box of goodies. I gave the volunteers behind the table my name, and they put a box in front of me.

A plain brown cardboard box, with no lid. It had my name on it. But it wasn’t my box.

Apparently, a sweet little old lady named Helen had come to pick up her box while I was turtle shopping. One of the boys, naturally, decided to carry the box out for her. The problem was, it wasn’t her box. And she didn’t realize it til she got home.

So, they got Father Joe, who took my number, told me to fill another box, just in case they couldn’t get my box back. And put my first AND last name on it. So, I picked up a donkey and cart planter I was going to sit on until the next weekend, a chalkware ballerina for my daughter’s room, another turtle, and some other cups for my sister. But my heart wasn’t really in it.

Here, donkey donkey donkey….

It took less than 24 hours for Father Joe to call me back, but a whole week for Helen 2.0 to return the box. So I ended up going the very last day, and not only got my first box back, but they gave me the second one, and I was able to fill a third for only a dollar more.